Commentary on world events that relate to Bible prophecy and on Rapture Ready issues
world events.

Mar 7, 2011

Rapture Index Nears an All-Time High

If you think we might be a seeing a sharp rise in end-time activity, you would be correct. I’ve never seen a time when so many headlines are being ripped right from Bible prophecy. Over the past two months, Rapture Ready has had a 40-percent rise in its traffic load. A large portion of the hits come from thousands of people looking to see what Bible prophecy has to say about ongoing current events. Many of the key search subjects are related to earthquakes, the weather, the Middle East, and the economy.

The upsurge has had an impact on the Rapture Index. It has been climbing for several years and is now within a few points of its all-time high. The Index has not been this high since January 2003.

The Rapture Index is a type of "Dow Jones Industrial Average" for measuring end-time activity. Since Jesus said we will not know the day of the Rapture, I figured the best way to know where we on God’s prophetic clock is to track the events predicted to occur at the time of our Lord’s return.

There is something very interesting about what is happening with the index now versus how it behaved in the past. A decade ago, the increases occurred in spikes. The index would rocket up and then quickly fall back. Prophetic events would occur, then a low would follow. What we are seeing now is a relentless period of continuous activity.

The yearly lows for the Rapture Index do a very good job of showing how activity is rising. If you look at the list below, you will see a steady rate of increase. One way to examine this trend is to ask: When is the last time we’ve had a year without a major earthquake? In order for the earthquake category to rate as a 1, we would have to go a whole year without a 6.5 or greater trembler occurring in a major, populated area. It wasn't too long ago that we could go a whole decade without seeing a quake strike a population center. Tropical cyclones have shown a similar surge in activity.

One shortcoming of the Rapture Index is that it doesn’t capture the historic significance of some recent end-time events. It only measures whether activity is rising or falling in frequency. Over the past year, I’ve noticed a dramatic increase in the number of historical events. Last summer, Russia had its worst drought on record, with the all-time hottest recorded temperature occurring in July. Australia’s Queensland territory suffered its worst flooding in the nation’s history, and two months later was hit by the most powerful cyclone ever. If this doesn’t cause the most skeptical people to scratch their heads, I should add that before that, Australia had just experienced its worse drought ever.

Another end-time occurrence that defies easy measure by the Index is morality. I believe it’s because we’ve hit rock bottom in many areas, and there is no room to go any lower. This week, I was at my dentist waiting to get a check-up. I was looking through the latest copy of People magazine and ran across a review of a new Broadway play that Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of South Park, have written. The play is about the adventures of a Mormon missionary in Africa. My eye caught excerpts of the lyrics of a song of unbelievable blasphemy aimed directly at God Himself.

It would be bad enough to speak of God in such a profane way, but all the more shocking is how cheery the reviews are about this gush of raw sewage. Here is how one reviewer spoke of the offense:

“The audience was then delighted by songs with lyrics like "(F-word) you, God," "(F-word) you God in the (A-word)" and "(F-word) you God in the (C-word)." Each number had the feeling of a traditional Broadway musical, but twisted by the South Park humor.”

Last year, Stone and Parker received death threats when they produced a cartoon with Muhammad wearing a bear costume. They do something a thousand times worse to the God of the Bible, and audiences are delighted, with Christian leaders not even mad enough to issue a token "How dare you?" We are truly in the last of the last days.

"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils" (1 Timothy 4:1). "But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13).

-- Todd

End Times–The Bottom Line

Global economic chaos is driving the distress and perplexity of the nations of planet earth. The words of the greatest of all prophets, Jesus Christ, echo in cavernous reverberation with each succeeding news report from the capitals of earth’s monetary centers.

“And there shall be…upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring” (Luke 21:25b).

Jesus’ Olivet Discourse spoke to conditions exponentially moved beyond norms. In other words, the “distress” and “perplexity” that nations will be experiencing as His Second Coming nears will be beyond any ever known by people of earth. And, in biblical terms, “seas and waves” refer to the masses of peoples. Jesus said that because there will be unprecedented distress and perplexity among the nations, the peoples populating those nations will be “roaring.”

All one must do to understand that the roots of the upheaval rocking America and the world at this very moment involve economics is to think on the acceleration of events in the headlines since September 11, 2001. It has been a decade of powerful disturbances beyond any experienced before.

America launched retaliatory action against those in the Middle East deemed complicit in the attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. Iraq was “liberated,” and Saddam Hussein paid for his tortures and murders. But, from that action–which seems to be at least the beginning of fulfillment of Zechariah chapter 5—has come the unleashing of worldwide jihad.

The U.S. economic engine, which has made the nation the most productive industrial power in history, runs on the petroleum most easily accessible in the regions surrounding Saudi Arabia. Manipulative money brokers, in my mind, have managed to–for reasons of their own--prevent drilling and refining of this nation’s reserves, making America vulnerable to the economic danger we now face.

Compounding the dangers, some of our “leaders” have engaged in financial skullduggery. By damaging U.S. infrastructure through the banking debacle and politically engineering the trillions of dollars run up in debt--while selling the nation by offering Treasury bonds to perhaps America’s most dangerous enemy, the Chinese--they move America ever more swiftly toward third-world status.

The explosion of revolution throughout the, for the most part, oil-rich nations surrounding Israel paints the end-times picture. That incendiary anarchy that has ignited fires of unrest in the U.S. and in various capitals of Europe shows the world to be in distress with perplexity, the sea and waves roaring.

It is true that the twentieth century was one of tremendous turbulence. World Wars I and II brought death, destruction, pestilence, and starvation of monumental proportion. The economic abyss that was the Great Depression certainly was preached by ministers as akin to the biblically prophesied apocalypse--and it was even claimed to be so by many pundits of the times.

However, the crashing of the World Trade Center towers to the streets of New York City on that terrible Tuesday morning seemed to have unleashed demons that continue to cause destruction more violent than that wrought during the entire previous century. That cascading avalanche is increasing with destructive force while it roars through our time with each hour that passes.

The toll in loss of human life thus far in the twenty-first century hasn’t come anywhere near the death-dealing inflicted in the previous century. But, so far as the humanistic powers that be are concerned, the potential for apocalyptic-like carnage has reached near critical mass. To the money masters–the economic titans--the bottom line is not the human toll, but the fiscal Armageddon to be avoided while controlling the ongoing economic avalanche and using it to best effect for their own nefarious purposes.

Concern over the great monetary upheaval overrides all else with the globalists elite. The seas of human populations must be maneuvered in puppet fashion to bring in their idea of how the world system should run.

All of the above is to say that, in my view, Jesus’ words point precisely to the world conditions developing around this generation at this very hour. It is oil and the wealth it represents that Satan is obviously using to try to bring about the destruction of the human race. That destruction is Satan’s bottom line (1 Peter 5: 8).

But, of course, it will never happen, because Jesus said of the final seven years of this earth age, the Tribulation: “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened” (Matthew 24: 22).

I’ve mentioned the bottom line for the humanists who want to control the world through manipulation of economics. I’ve mentioned Satan’s bottom line–his desire to destroy all of mankind. Now we look at God’s bottom line, for this is the one destined to be achieved for all who will accept His Son as the only cure for the deadly soul disease from which they suffer.

God wants the souls of all people to be saved out of their lost condition, thus from His judgment and wrath that must fall upon earthly wickedness. This is why Christ hasn’t yet come for His Church in the Rapture. About this, the apostle Peter writes: “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3: 9).

Sadly, not all will accept God’s offer of rescue from the coming seven years of horror we term the Tribulation, or from the lake of fire for all of eternity. However, it isn’t our worry to know who will and won’t believe. It is the duty of each who names the name of Jesus Christ as Lord to make sure the message is proclaimed that Jesus died, was buried, and resurrected so that all who believe in Him will have everlasting life. We must let the lost world hear the message that Christ might come at any moment for His own in the Rapture!